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"THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



Honorable Henry B. F. Macfarland, 

President of the Board of Commissioners 
of the District of Columbia., 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DAY, 

SEPTEMBER THIRD, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE, 



PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION, 
BUFFALO, N. Y. 



Reprinted from the Congressional Record of April 10, 1906. 



WASHINGTON. 
1906. 



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ADDRESS 

OF 

HON. HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND. 



The House being in the Committee of the Whole House on the state 
of the Union and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 16953) 
making appropriations for the service of the Post-Office Department for 
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, and for other purposes — 

Mr. SIMS said : 

Mr. Chairman : In some remarks I made yesterday on a bill 
before the House pertaining to the District of Columbia I 
quoted what I then had before me from an address delivered 
by the Hon. Henry B. F. Macfarland before the Buffalo Exposi- 
tion and also a quotation from an article in Everybody's Maga- 
zine. The quotation that I gave was one that I took from a 
publication that I had, and I gave it in full as far as I had it, 
but it was not all that he said on the subject, and he has called 
my attention to the fact that the partial quotation was not en- 
tirely just to him. He has sent me his address in full before the 
Buffalo Exposition, and I include same as part of my remarks. 
It is a splendid presentation of the Commissioner's view of the 
preseut form of the government of the District of Columbia, 
and I ask every Member of the House to read same carefully. 

Mr. Chairman, it was not my intention to be understood as 
criticising the Commissioners. I said once before in the House 
when discussing the present form of government that if I was 
asked to name three gentlemen for Commissioners I should 
name the three gentlemen who now hold those positions. My 
complaint is with the form of government and not with the 
Commissioners. The difficulties I complain of are inherent, 
and not the result of the preseut administration. I am uncon- 
ditionally for home rule for the District of Columbia, and under 
the present form of government it can not be had ; therefore I 
6745 3 



am in favor of such a change as will give the people of this 
District complete control of local municipal affairs. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Tennessee asks unani- 
mous consent to print in the Record the speech which he indi- 
cates. Is there objection? 

There was no objection. 

The speech is as follows : 

" THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA." 

The capital of the United States of America brings greeting to-day 
to the Pan-American Exposition of the first year of the twentieth 
century. The District of Columbia, home of the United States Gov- 
ernment, seated in the city planned by Washington, and which bears 
his name, offers its congratulations to the managers of this exposition, 
and to the men and women of Buffalo who made it possible, upon the 
success which they have achieved. Congratulations have come, or will 
come, from every State in the Union, from every one of our sister 
republics, and from the Dominion of Canada, but none, we flatter our- 
selves, can be more significant than those which come from the official 
heart of the United States of America, where the feelings of all the 
people of our Union are gathered up and expressed together. The Dis- 
trict of Columbia is highly honored in having this day set apart by 
the exposition for its benefit, but it can make some return in delivering 
to the exposition the essence of the good will and felicitations of our 
country. Indeed, as the oldest republican capital on this continent, it 
may, without presumption, claim the honor to speak at least for all its 
younger relatives, the capitals of the republics south of us, including 
the youngest republic of this hemisphere, Cuba, which comes into 
independence with the opening of the. twentieth century. George Wash- 
ington was the example of the heroes who liberated and founded those 
republics, and they naturally looked, and looked not in vain, to the 
capital which he founded for that sympathy and support which they 
could not hope for in any other capital the great world round. In the 
city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, they found what they 
had a right to expect — recognition and consideration, without conde- 
scension or intimidation, courtesy as disinterested as is ever found 
among men. They misread history who see in the dealings of the 
United States of America with the other republics of this hemisphere 
anything inconsistent with the character of the elder brother. Prom 
the time that they established their independence the earlier republics 
had the friendship of the earliest republic, and it has been almost 
always generously shown in considerate ways. 

It was in the District of Columbia that John Quincy Adams, follow- 
ing out George Washington's thought, formulated the principle which 
President Monroe announced, and to which his name was given. It 
has neyrer been invoked except for the benefit of this continent, and it 
will never be employed for the wanton injury of any power beyond the 
seas, much less to the damage of any country between the Atlantic and 
Pacific. It is a doctrine of peace and not of war, except as war may 
sometimes be necessary to gain peace and it can never be rightfully 
used except on this basis. To keep the peace of this continent has 
always been a desire of our country. 

It was in the District of Columbia that John Quincy Adams and 
Henry Clay, in eloquent language, first set forth the noble principles of 
6745 



WAR 



the relations which the United States desired with the new-born repuh 
lies, in their efforts to secure representation of the United Stales at 
the first Congress of American Republics at Panama — efforts which, 
though injured by partisan opposition, were crowned with success, 
although it came too late to be of practical importance. It was in the 
District of Columbia that, after the lapse of more than half a century, 
another Congress of American Republics, greater than that of Panama, 
as the republics themselves had become greater, met, upon the invita- 
tion of the United States of America, and drew together the States of 
North and South America in closer ties than they had ever known 
before. It was at the opening of that congress, the precursor of this 
exposition and of the congress which is about to meet in the City of 
Mexico, that Secretary Blaine expressed the deep thought of the Amer- 
ican people when he said : 

" We believe that hearty cooperation, based on hearty confidence, 
will save all American states from the burdens and evils which have 
long and cruelly afflicted the older nations of the world. 

" We believe that a spirit of justice, of common and equal interest 
between the American states, will leave no room for an artificial 
balance of power like unto that which has led to wars abroad and 
drenched Europe in blood. 

" We believe that friendship, avowed with candor and maintained 
with good faith, will remove from American states the necessity of 
guarding boundary lines between themselves with fortifications and 
military force. 

" We believe that standing armies, beyond those which are needful 
for public order and the safety of internal administration, should be 
unknown on both American continents. 

" We believe that friendship and not force, the spirit of just law 
and not the violence of the mob, should be the recognized rule of 
administration between American nations and in American nations." 

Arbitration as a means of preventing war has been prominent in 
the gospel of our country, and it was with peculiar satisfaction that 
we heard Secretary Blaine say, in closing the Pan-American Con 
gress of 1889, in Washington : 

" If, in this closing hour, the conference had but one deed to cele- 
brate, we should dare call the world's attention to the deliberate, con- 
fident, solemn dedication of two great continents to peace and to the 
prosperity which has peace for its foundation. We hold up this new 
Magna Charts which abolishes war and substitutes arbitration between 
the American republics as the first and great fruit of the International 
American Conference. That noblest of Americans, the aged poet and 
philanthropist, Whittier, is the first to send his salutation and his 
benediction, declaring : 

" ' If, in the spirit of peace, the American conference agrees upon 
a rule of arbitration which shall make war in this hemisphere well- 
nigh impossible, its sessions will prove one of the most important 
events in the history of the world.' " 

The District of Columbia has been the scene of many other efforts 
and negotiations having the same objects as the Pan-American Con- 
gress of 1889. 

It has also been the scene of many efforts and negotiations, in part 
successful, intended to secure closer and more cordial relations be- 
tween the United States and our great neighbor on the north, who 
must be included, as here, in any real Pan-American project. In spite 
of all that selfish politicians, prompted by no less selfish business men. 
have done to keep the United States and the Dominion of Canada 
6745 



apart, they have inevitably, under natural laws that can not be 
affected by treaties or enactments, been brought closer together in per- 
sonal and commercial intercourse, which now makes the very thought 
of war between them seem, even here, near the battle grounds of the 
war of 1812, incredible if not impossible. It was the treaty of Wash- 
ington, preeminently entitled to that name, which, providing for the 
greatest arbitration of history between two of the greatest nations of 
history, proclaimed the international principles of the United States 
and removed the last real danger of war with Great Britain which we 
shall ever see. 

Peace on earth among men of good will, peace with honor, though 
not peace at any price — this is and has always been the choice of the 
American people, who do not love war for war's sake, and who do not 
thirst for its conquests or its glories. That brotherhood of men which 
is only possible because of the fatherhood of God is dear to them. 
That friendliness for all other nations, without entangling alliances 
with any of them, which George Washington preached, has been the 
heart of the people's desire ever since, even when the war spirit rose 
high or when actual war was on. Nothing is further from the truth 
than any representation of the United States as an Uncle Sam going 
around with a chip on his shoulder, making faces at foreigners and 
breathing out threatenings against them. On the contrary, the dispo- 
sition of the United States is to endure patiently as long as possible 
whatever wrongs may be put upon it, and to seek a remedy by peaceful 
means. And it is less and less disposed to brag and bluster as it 
attains greater power and therefore greater self-respect. This very 
exposition, like those which have preceded it, manifests the spirit of 
the American people, devoted to the competitions of peace. Proud of 
its Army and Navy, proud of their achievements and those of the 
citizen soldiery supplementing the regular forces, it looks upon them 
as a means of defense and not of offense, and for the exceptional 
emergencies and not the ordinary life of the nation. 

Nowhere is the national or the international feeling of the United 
States of America so strong or so clearly expressed as in the District 
of Columbia, where the representatives and the citizens of all the States 
and Territories meet and contribute to the population ; where the 
National Government carries on its operations ; where the President, 
through the Secretary of State, conducts the negotiations respecting 
its foreign relations with the ambassadors and ministers of all the other 
governments who are permanently resident in Washington. The very 
purpose of the founders of the District of Columbia was to make it na- 
tional, and even cosmopolitan — removed from local and provincial feel- 
ings and influences — and its development has more and more gratified 
their desire. 

It will be remembered that the far-seeing genius of George Washing- 
ton first perceived the necessity for such a capital. He had seen the 
Revolutionary capital and that of the Confederation which followed 
the Revolution moving about from place to place in ephemeral and 
undignified fashion ; he had seen the Congress of the Confederation 
flee from its place in Philadelphia in 1783 before the onslaught of a 
mob of the ill requited soldiers of the Revolution. He had determined 
then that the people of the United States needed not only a more per- 
fect union, but a more perfect capital in a Federal district, which would 
give it security and sanctity it could not have in any place tempora- 
rily loaned by one of the States. Other men began to see it, too. It 
was felt that the dignity as well as the safety and therefore the per- 
petuity of the National Government that was to come into being with 
6745 



the new Constitution demanded that it should have a seat of its own, 
under it own authority, and where it could not be encroached upon 
by any disturbing influences. Accordingly, in the Constitution of 1789 
provision was made for a Federal district 10 miles square, over which 
Congress should have exclusive jurisdiction. Then came the considera- 
tion in Congress of the important question of where the Federal dis- 
trict should be placed. Naturally, different sections and different 
States desired it. It was seen that it could not be given to New Eng- 
land or to the extreme South, but every State in between considered 
itself eligible, and most of them tried to get it, offering in some cases 
even their State capitals for the national use. The contest in Congress 
over the selection of a place became excited and at times so bitter 
that some felt that the break-up of the Union, which all feared as 
possible before its thin ties could be made unbreakable, might come over 
the placing of the Federal district. Congress made several tentative 
selections and one, in Pennsylvania, that was apparently definitive, 
but all were reconsidered, and it seemed as though the controversy 
might go on indefinitely when the famous compromise was reached by 
which the South got the Federal district, in consideration of its acqui- 
escence in the desire of the North for the assumption by the nation of 
the Revolutionary debts of the States. It was as natural as it was 
admirable that the choice of the precise location for the Federal dis- 
trict on the Potomac River, for 100 miles from Williamsport south- 
ward, was left to George Washington, who knew the whole region 
thoroughly and was more interested in the success of the plan than 
any other man, for he had not only the eye of the surveyor but the 
eye of the seer, and selected a site only with regard to its beauty, its 
convenience, and its adaptability, but to the future of the nation. It 
was well that he was also intrusted with the preparation of the Fed- 
eral city within the Federal district, for he laid it out, with the assist- 
ance of Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the other school of statesmen, 
and of the surveyors, L'Enfant and Ellicott, with the eye of faith 
which saw the United States of to-day as no other man of his time 
began to see it. » 

It is hard to realize now that no one saw then as Washington did 
the United States of a century later, bound together in a Union that 
can not be broken, a mighty nation, spread not only across the conti- 
nent but across the seas, and whose future greatness no man can 
limit. Washington thought with breadth and depth that distinguished 
him from the other fathers of this Repu'blic, and nowhere does this 
appear more clearly than on the map of the Federal city, as Wash- 
ington called it, although inevitably it was called by his name by 
everyone else, and finally by Congress. As we look at that plan, 
■whose scope and detail are now admired by the greatest experts as 
the best possible for the purpose, we see Washington's confidence in 
the future of the nation which he had brought into the world. It 
is difficult for us to realize how puny that nation appeared to for- 
eigners ; how weak and unpromising to many of its own citizens ; 
so that the magnificent project of Washington for the Federal city 
seemed to them, alike in its unparalleled grandeur and symmetry, a 
thing for ridicule. The serene Washington, who faced laughter as he 
faced cannon, did not change his project, which is still the working 
plan for the city of Washington to this day. Washington not only 
selected the site of the Federal district and planned the Federal city, 
but he also directed the arrangements under which Maryland and 
Virginia gave to the United States the jurisdiction over the terri- 
tory for the District of Columbia, as Congress called the Federal dis- 
6745 



8 

trict in memory of Columbus, and personally conducted the negoti- 
ations with the nineteen owners of the land, mostly cut up into farms, 
on which the city of Washington was to be built. He included on the 
Maryland side of the Potomac, in the larger portion of the Dis- 
trict, 69 out of the 100 square miles, the city of Georgetown, founded by 
Scotch and English in 1751, and on the Virginia side of the Potomac 
his own home town of Alexandria, both towns then ambitious and 
hopeful of commercial greatness, which Washington himself sought 
to bring to them by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, designed to 
connect the East with the country beyond the mountains, then called 
the West. But the Federal city he placed on the map between 
Rock Creek, the eastern boundary of Georgetown, on the west, and 
the Anacostia River on the east, with the Potomac as the southern 
boundary. The National Government was poor as well as weak. 
It could not afford to buy out the original proprietors. It could 
not afford to put up the necessary buildings for its own use. There- 
fore, in the decade from 1790 to 1800, given to Washington for the 
preparation of the national capital, he had to arrange with the 
owners to make them stockholders, in a sense, in the national city, 
by securing their donations of more than half of the land to the 
National Government, in consideration of the enhanced value which 
would accrue to the land which they kept. Then, with ample reserva- 
tions of land for avenues, streets, and parks, some of the rest was 
sold on the Government account as building lots to raise funds for 
buildings in connection with appropriations of money made by Mary- 
land and Virginia. Washington, who in this formative period had 
to overcome many difficulties, at last, just before his untimely death 
in 1799, saw his work so well done that it could not be undone, and 
derived from it a pleasure which nothing else except his successes in 
the Revolution and in the adoption of the Constitution had yielded 
to him. 

But although the Federal district had been established and the 
Federal city had been laid out on paper, the general appearance of the 
farms that stretched from the low hills in the north of the District 
down to the fishing hamlets on the shore of the Potomac, showed 
very little change when, in 1800, the National Government slowly 
removed from Philadelphia to Washington. The Executive Mansion, 
which was of the same size, but not of the same color as to-day, and 
the old Capitol building, one-third the size of that of to-day, were the 
only important new structures, although buildings for the small Ex- 
ecutive Departments of that time had been constructed and a number 
of dwelling houses, with a few small hotels and boarding houses. 
Pennsylvania avenue was rather plainly marked as a road between 
the Capitol and the Executive Mansion, and a few other avenues and 
streets in the southern and central portion of the young city were 
traced through the groves and pastures in a similar way. 

The population of Washington in the year 1800. when the National 
Government had become established in it, was less than 4,000, George- 
town having less than 3,000, Alexandria nearly 5,000, while there were 
nearly 3,000 in the rest of the District. The total population of the 
District was 14,093, including 2.072 slaves. 

The National Government was a small body of men, and its business 
was comparatively small in amount. The nation itself was felt 
to be still an experiment, and it was not regarded as certain that 
there would continue to be a National Government or a national capi- 
tal. Chief Justice Marshall, however, took his seat on the Supreme 
Bench in February, 1801, and began, in that masterly series of decisions, 
6745 



9 

to draw out of the new Constitution the powers for a mighty National 
Government, which could never be broken except by revolution. While 
that great statesman in the robes of a jurist was thus carrying George 
Washington's ideas into practical and permanent effect, the National 
Government continued to be so poor that it was not able to build up 
and improve the Federal city as Washington had intended. And even 
as the nation grew in wealth and power, and larger measures of both 
came to the National Government, it continued to leave the improve- 
ment of the city of Washington, and all the rest of the District of 
Columbia, practically to the people who lived in it. For seventy years 
Congress did not give the District of Columbia even a form of govern- 
ment, although Washington was given what Georgetown and Alexandria 
had of municipal government by mayor and councils. In that time 
Congress spent $90,000,000 in constructing buildings and other con- 
veniences for the business of the Government in the District of Colum- 
bia, but, with what seems like neglect of the interests of the capital, 
it left the burden of general improvements and the maintenance of the 
local governments largely to the inhabitants of the District. It was 
not, perhaps, intentional neglect. It was undoubtedly caused at first 
by the comparative poverty of the National Government, and after- 
wards the very conditions resulting prevented that pride and interest 
which ought to have been taken in the national capital. 

Then, too, it was not until after the civil war that it was finally 
settled that the national capital would not be moved from the District 
of Columbia. It bad hardly been established there before agitation for 
its removal began ; first, on the part of those who were dissatisfied 
with it as a place of residence, and, afterwards, by those who desired 
for other places the honor and advantage of having the national cap- 
ital. As the expansion of the country, begun by Washington and Jeffer- 
son, proceeded westward over the Alleghenies and beyond the Missis- 
sippi, and it became apparent that it might go on until the Pacific was 
reached, the men of the West began to murmur because the national 
capital was on the eastern edge of the continent, and communication 
with it was slow and difficult. The railroad and the telegraph were re- 
moving the only substantial reason for a change, when the civil war 
made a change impossible by hallowing the District of Columbia with 
the sentiments of sacrifice and glory. It had not been improved as 
Washington desired. The city of Washington had not been made beauti- 
ful. It was still unkempt and neglected in its general aspects, but 
great armies of the best and bravest of the North and South had fought 
to possess it, and many thousands of them had poured out their life- 
blood for it. The hundreds of thousands of men who marched through 
it to the battlefields all around it felt a new interest in it, and those 
who survived and returned to their homes all over the Union communi- 
cated that interest to their relatives and friends. 

In these days of travel it is hard to realize how few Americans had 
visited Washington before the war, and therefore how dim and shadowy 
the national capital seemed to the people of the country. But the 
national capital, like the National Government, became intensely real 
and intensely precious to the men and women whose dear ones went to 
battle for it, and after the success of the Union armies had given a 
new meaning to both the Government and the capital the suggestion 
of giving the Government a new home met only with ridicule. The 
greatest captain of the war, the general of the triumphant armies, 
shared the new interest in the old capital, for which he had probably 
cared very little, like most of his fellow-citizens, before the war. When 
General Grant became President of the United States in 1869, he came 
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10 

Into close official relations with the District of Columbia, and it was 
easy for the leader of its more progressive citizens, a remarkable man 
whose vigor and ability impressed General Grant, to enlist his support 
for an effort to carry into effect the long-neglected plans of George 
Washington for the District of Columbia. Fortunately for the District, 
its natural leader and the large majority of both Houses of Congress 
were of the same political party as the President of the United States, 
and that party, which also controlled the Supreme Court, still had the 
confidence of the majority of the people as the. savior of the Union. 
This made it possible to do in a very short time remarkable work for 
the betterment of the District of Columbia. First of all, it was given 
a government. Congress, under the Constitution, had legislated for it 
in a haphazard way for the most part, although it had given it a judi- 
cial system at the beginning of the century and a metropolitan police 
system at the beginning of the civil war. But in 1871 it gave the 
District a territorial form of government, with a governor, appointed 
by the President, and a legislature and a delegate in Congress, elected 
by the people, who still retained the right of suffrage which they had 
formerly exercised in voting for the municipal officers of the cities in 
the District. Alexandria had been lost to the District when Virginia 
took back, in 1846, the strip of territory which it had donated on the 
south side of the Potomac, and in 1871 the cities of Washington and 
Georgetown gave up their municipal governments, and from that time 
on they have had no other government than that of the District of 
Columbia, so that the city of Washington, which now comprehends also 
the former city of Georgetown, is the only city in the world which has 
no government of its own. 

The government of the District of Columbia, controlled by the one 
masterful spirit, proceeded to improve the city of Washington by open- 
ing up, grading, and paving avenues and streets all over it accord- 
ing to Washington's plan. The valleys were filled up with the hills. 
The work was done on a grand scale, and all over the city at once, so 
that when it had once been begun it was easier to go on and finish it 
than to try to undo it. Suddenly and generally the plowshare of 
progress was driven roughly but skillfully in all sections of the city. 
Naturally there was bitter and ardent protest from property owners 
who preferred the old conditions to the increased taxation of the new. 
But for the time being the new force at work was irresistible, and 
before it could be checked it had started the new Washington and had 
made it impossible to go backwards. All that the reactionary forces 
could do, aided by a political change in Congress and the panic of 1873, 
was to halt the march of improvement and change the form of govern- 
ment. 

Although the charges of corruption and thievery, which were so freely 
made, were not established in the Congressional investigation that fol- 
lowed, and though the general results of what was done under the 
Territorial government were accepted as on the whole beneficial, al- 
though it took years to make some see it, the taxpayers of the District 
generally were satisfied by their experiences that they wanted no more 
of the electoral franchise under the apparently unchangeable condition 
of universal manhood suffrage, and therefore they induced Congress, 
in 1874, to provide for the government of the District without suffrage 
by a trmporary board of three Commissioners, which was to prepare the 
way for a permanent government by Commissioners. At the same time 
Congress was brought to acknowledge for the first time its financial ob- 
ligations to the District of Columbia in view of the fact that the title 
to more than one-half of the real estate was in the United States, and 
6745 



11 

the National Government was receiving the full benefit of all municipal 
services. Congress promised that, under the new government by Com- 
missioners, it would pay half the expenses of the District, the other 
half to be paid by the citizens who had theretofore borne the whole 
burden. Congress also, in consideration of the authority it had given 
the Territorial government to borrow money for the extraordinary ex- 
penses of improvement, gave the guaranty of the United States for the 
payment of the principal and interest of the bonds issued on that ac- 
count. In fulfillment of its promises, Congress, in 1878, passed the act 
which the Supreme Court of the United States has termed " the consti- 
tution of the District of Columbia," giving it a permanent government 
by three Commissioners, to be appointed by the President of the United 
States, who exercise all the executive power and to whom is also dele- 
gated a certain legislative authority to make regulations enforcible by 
penalties for the public safety, health, and comfort — a unique grant to 
an executive government. In the same act runs the provision for the 
division of the expenses of the District of Columbia half and half be- 
tween the United States and the District of Columbia. Twenty-three 
years' experience has proved that this is the ideal form of government 
for the District of Columbia. This is attested by the fact that there 
is no probability that it will be materially changed at any time in the 
future. The fact that it is an exception to all other governments in 
the United States in that it provides for taxation without representa- 
tion, and is autocratic in form, grieves some good people in the District 
who care more for sentiment than for substance, and grieves others who 
would like to take advantage of the untoward conditions which the res- 
toration of the suffrage would inevitably produce. But the people of 
the District of Columbia generally believe that they have the best form 
of government possible for them, and if any serious attempt were made 
to change it, it would be overwhelmingly defeated. They know that the 
absence of partisan politics in the District of Columbia has made its 
government purely a matter of business, and that it has been carried 
on with absolute honesty, with conspicuous efficiency and economy, and 
in accordance with its official motto, " Justitia dmnibus." There has 
been no suspicion of maladministration, of corruption, or of blackmail. 
The Commissioners and the other officers of the government of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia invariably have had the confidence and support of all 
that is best in the community. Under the organic act of 1878, two of 
the Commissioners are to be residents of the District of Columbia, and 
the third is to be an officer of high rank in the Army Corps of Engineers, 
the civilians serving for three years, the engineer commissioner having 
no fixed term, but, as a rule, serving for a shorter period. Under the 
unwritten law of custom, the President always chooses the civilians 
from different political parties, and one of them has always been a law- 
yer, though the law requires only that they shall be residents of the 
District. Their recommendations of legislation and appropriations are 
the basis for the annual action of Congress, and Congress, through its 
committees, consults the Commissioners about all measures affecting the 
District, and commonly follows the advice of the Commissioners. The 
annual budget of the Commissioners amounts now, in round numbers, to 
about $9,000,000, which has to be appropriated in detail by Congress, 
half from the National Treasury, half from the District revenues, and 
all the accounts of the District, because of the national participation, 
are audited not only by the auditor of the District, but by the United 
States Treasury Department. Accounts that pass such scrutiny could 
not long be dishonest, even if there were dishonest men in the govern- 
ment of the District. 
6745 



12 

This unique government would not have been continued and would 
not have been succesful had it not been in fact more responsive to 
public opinion than any other in North or South America. Self-gov- 
ernment of the most direct and effective character is the possession 
of the people of the District of Columbia. The President has always 
chosen as Commissioners men whose character and abilities gave them 
the support of their fellow-citizens, and the Commissioners and Con- 
gress have always welcomed every expression of the public will. The 
government of the District of Columbia is therefore admittedly the 
best in the United States, because it is a government by the best citi- 
zens, with partisan politics, the professional politician, and the municipal 
jobber absolutely eliminated. The District of Columbia desires to ex- 
hibit at the Pan-American Exposition its form of government as its- 
best and most characteristic product, which can not be duplicated for 
honesty and efficiency. Under this government it is becoming the most 
beautiful capital in the world and has doubled its population and 
wealth. 

In the celebration, on the 12th of last December, of the centennial 
anniversary of the founding of the District of Columbia the speeches at 
the Executive Mansion and at the Capitol showed that the District of 
Columbia had held its own in the progress of the nineteenth century. 
It had not become "the "commercial emporium" of the first order for 
which George Washington hoped, any more than it had become the home 
of the national university of which he dreamed and for which he made 
a large bequest. Yet it has an economic and commercial development 
which surprises even its own inhabitants with every census, and it 
has room and special facilities, without endangering the peculiar advan- 
tages of Washington as a residence city, for the large expansion of 
manufacturing enterprises, while it has become a university center with 
2,500 collegiate students, and, besides its colleges, ppsseses those great 
mines for scientific research, the Government libraries and collections, 
with a million volumes and thousands of scientific treasures, which are 
now to be made more accessible than ever to the graduate student. 

But the distinction of the District of Columbia lies in the fact that 
it is more than a commercial or a collegiate center — more, even, than 
a place of scientific research. It is the national capital, the home of 
the National Government, the official residence of the President, his 
Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the ambassadors and 
ministers of all the other governments of the world accredited to the 
United States. This is, and ought to be, and always will be, its dis- 
tinctive glory. It had this at its beginning a hundred years ago, when 
President John Adams announced formally to Congress the transfer of 
the seat of government to its borders. Even then it had that fine 
society, which it has always had since, and that noble life, full of in- 
terest and culture, of high pursuits and great affairs. It has not the 
most polyglot population, but it has the most cosmopolitan interests 
in the United States. All the Presidents except George Washington, 
and all their Cabinet officers, all the Chief Justices from John Marshall 
down, and all their associates in the Supreme Court, all the Vice-Presi- 
dents since Jefferson, all the Senators and all the Representatives since 
the Fifth Congress, all the ambassadors and ministers of foreign govern- 
ments since 1800, all the great officers of the Army and Navy, and 
many of our most eminent scientists have been residents of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia and have contributed to its society, always distin- 
guished for its refinement and culture, not only the honor of their 
presence, but the riches of their minds. More important still, the 
public men have done their great deeds and spoken their great words, 
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13 

making in large measure the history of our country, in the District of 
Columbia. Simply to recall the names of men whose biographies are 
that history will give you a true conception of the wealth and great- 
ness of the District of Columbia, which claims them, their speeches and 
their actions at their best as its own. Each of them is claimed by 
some State, possibly as it proudest boast, but all of them belong to the 
District of Columbia, where they lived out their greatness in word and 
in deed. 

The intelligent American, visiting Washington for the first time, sees 
not only that it is beautiful for situation and beautiful in itself, with 
its splendid avenues and streets, its parks and trees, its noble buildings 
and handsome residences, but that it is majestic and impressive in its 
memories and associations. He sees it peopled with our leaders in the 
century whose progress this exposition celebrates. In the Executive 
Mansion, in the Capitol, on Pennsylvania avenue, he walks in the foot- 
prints of the greatest men we have known, and he sees at every turn 
reminders of their lives and their work. The Washington Monument, 
towering above all similar structures in the world, is a symbol not only 
of the great and pure founder's life, but of the life of the city which 
he founded, in its greatness and simplicity, in its high aspirations and 
in its separation from mercenary considerations. We need no West- 
minster Abbey while we have Washington to preserve to us that which 
can not be wrought into marble or bronze, the very spirit of the best 
that was in our statesmen and heroes, and in performing this high 
office it rises in simple grandeur above the marts of the money makers 
and the gatherings of the factories. 

From the windows of the Washington Monument, 500 feet above the 
ground, and almost in the center of the original District of Columbia, 
one can survey almost its entire extent without a glass. It is a small 
State, though not so small as Athens or as Rome. It is smaller than 
any other political division of the United States, although it has more 
population than six of the States — Delaware, Idaho, Montana, Wyo- 
ming, Utah, and Nevada — and than any of the Territories. It is not 
rich in money, as riches go to-day, though it is not poor, as riches went 
hut yesterday. But it is wealthy in the common wealth of greatness, 
intellectual and spiritual, in good government, good society, outward 
beauty and inward grace, noble men and noble memories, and a glorious 
history. It stands supreme, far above the terrible waves of material- 
ism, for intellectual and spiritual achievement, for high thinking and 
fine living, and for those ambitions which can not be satisfied with 
sordid gains or sensuous pleasures. Its voice sounds even above the 
clamor of the market places to remind us of men who were too busy to 
make money and too patriotic to seek selfish ends, and who gave to 
their country what other men gave to themselves. It tells the youth 
of the country that there is something better than selfishness, and sum- 
mons them with the irresistible call of duty to the unselfish life of 
patriotic endeavor. 

From the calm height of the Washington Monument men and things 
below appear in proper proportion ; they are seen through the dis- 
tance of space, as through the distance of time, and with the serene 
eye of history. True and relative values appear. We see. too, how out 
of all the wrongs and all the difficulties and all the dangers of the 
past, even through the mighty agonies of the civil war, the nation has 
been led constantly into a larger place and to better things. 

Looking westward, up the beautiful reaches of the Potomac, curv- 
ing toward the sunset, we remember that George Washington rode 
there, looking with the eye of the first great American expansionist 
6745 



14 

beyond the horizon, beyond the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies, to that 
promised land which he sought to have us occupy, and we remember 
how, step by step, in spite of all obstacles and all discouragement and 
all defeats, the idea of Washington has been carried out until his princi- 
ples, represented by his flag, have been spread over the islands of the 
sea in the uttermost parts of the earth, far beyond his farthest dream. 
As we look to the southward, toward Mount Vernon, where he lived 
and died, and yet still lives, we think how his ideal of republican free- 
dom, his example as a Revolutionary patriot, brought a score of re- 
publics into being south of us, and how his teachings made the United 
States the protector and the friend of every one of them, without mak- 
ing the United States the enemy of any other country. Then, when we 
turn to the eastern windows, looking out to the hills beyond which lies 
the Atlantic Ocean we see the influence of Washington and his example 
in the Republic of France, in the republican aspirations of other Euro- 
pean countries, in the democracy which is the real government of Great 
Britain. We see his doctrine of peace keeping by arbitration, first set 
forth in treaty form under his direction by John Jay in the famous 
treaty with England, then denounced and since admired, enthroned 
at The Hague by all the world, and we see that his humane and en- 
lighteiied maxims of government, national and international, once inno- 
vations are now commonplaces. Pessimism seems out of place, opti- 
mism seems natural, as we reflect in the city of Washington upon the 
achievements of the nation of Washington under the principles of 
Washington. Clouds cover the zenith, rain even falls from their dark- 
ness, but the sun, shining over Arlington, where lie men who died 
that the Republic might live, arches the Capitol with a glorious rain- 
bow, beautiful reminder of the covenant of God with his people. 

So, as we stand here in this " Rainbow City," looking out over our 
country and the world, facing the new occasions which have brought 
new duties, frankly admitting that with unsolved problems at home 
we must solve even great problems abroad, realizing that we have been 
brought with the suddenness and completeness of Providence into 
leadership among the nations, with all the responsibility and all the 
peril, as well as all the privileges and opportunities that it involves, 
we shall not be cowards who falter. We will not blink our shortcom- 
ings, our difliculties, or our dangers, but we will remember the wonder- 
ful way in which we have been brought through greater trials and trib- 
ulations and the good which we have been enabled to do for ourselves 
and for all mankind, even in the recent past — in China as in the do- 
minions of the sea. We do not shut our eyes to the clouds and darkness 
over us or even to the rain falling upon us, but we see shining through 
it the rays of the sun of righteousness ; we see beyond it the rainbow of 
the promises of God. We hear His voice saying to us, " Only do 
right, be strong and of good courage, go forward in the way of 
my commandment." We are persuaded that if we obey, in spite of 
everything that may oppose us, in spite of our own faintness and faults, 
we shall come off conquerors and more than conquerors through Him 
that hath loved us. 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 368 779 ft 



